In many ways young people appear to be using and abusing alcohol as a ritual in their "rites of passage" to adulthood, perhaps as a symbolic means to demonstrate their "adultness." Anthropologists have documented the importance of rites of passage rituals for marking the successful passage from one position in a social structure to another. Rites of passage include the three phases of separation, transition, and reaggregation. There are many rituals, some formalized and common throughout this culture and others common within certain subcultures and ethnic groups and still others less formal or only practiced within certain subgroups. This culture has had a tendency to decrease the observation of rites of passage rituals. Sanctioned initiation rituals can provide increased satisfaction, dedication and persistence among students completing their education, and can also benefit the system by reducing the number of unsanctioned, dangerous, addictive rituals that are required of new students by upperclass students. Counselors face the challenges of finding or devising appropriate and rigorous rituals that will permit youth to demonstrate and prove their worthiness to be considered and accepted as members of the adult world without resorting to dangerous addictive and debilitating ritual activities. The evidence suggests that greater benefits and fewer problems accrue from these endeavors than is being accomplished with the current attempts to prohibit all kinds of initiation rituals during the rites of passage period of youth. (ABL)